The following map should simplify things.......ughhhh.....
Turkey and Saudi Arabia aren't thinking about defeating ISIS
Our allies in the Battle of Aleppo are on both sides. How does one win a battle when you are arming and supporting both sides?
Which brings up lots of questions we should be asking. For instance, who are we supporting?
If you thought the political and humanitarian situation in Syria couldn't be any worse, you are about to be proven horribly wrong. Unless several nation pull back from the brink right now, the Syrian Civil War is about to turn into a region-wide war that could plunge much of the Muslim world into open warfare, and could possibly even lead to a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.
It all starts with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
What happened to the Assad regime that seemed about to collapse last summer? Putin happened.
The turning point came when Turkey decided to shoot down a Russian jet and machine gun the pilot while he parachuted.
Instead of confronting Erdogan, Putin decided to hit Turkey where it hurts - it's Syrian regime change strategy. The rebels in Aleppo have been cut off from their benefactors in Turkey. A rebel defeat here would make the dream of Syria regime change almost impossible, outside of a full-scale foreign military invasion.
Of course it hasn't been just Russia that has turned this around. Iran and its proxies in Iraq have done most of the heavy-lifting.
"We definitely won't let the situation in Syria to go forward the way rebel countries want... We will take necessary actions in due time," deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri told Iran's Arabic-language Al-Aalam television.
Jazayeri was responding to a question on whether Iran planned to send more military "advisers" - a euphemism for both actual advisers and front line troops and special forces - to Syria were Saudi troops to be deployed there, risking a direct confrontation between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia aren't thinking about defeating ISIS
Our allies in the Battle of Aleppo are on both sides. How does one win a battle when you are arming and supporting both sides?
Which brings up lots of questions we should be asking. For instance, who are we supporting?
If you thought the political and humanitarian situation in Syria couldn't be any worse, you are about to be proven horribly wrong. Unless several nation pull back from the brink right now, the Syrian Civil War is about to turn into a region-wide war that could plunge much of the Muslim world into open warfare, and could possibly even lead to a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.
It all starts with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
What happened to the Assad regime that seemed about to collapse last summer? Putin happened.
The turning point came when Turkey decided to shoot down a Russian jet and machine gun the pilot while he parachuted.
Instead of confronting Erdogan, Putin decided to hit Turkey where it hurts - it's Syrian regime change strategy. The rebels in Aleppo have been cut off from their benefactors in Turkey. A rebel defeat here would make the dream of Syria regime change almost impossible, outside of a full-scale foreign military invasion.
Of course it hasn't been just Russia that has turned this around. Iran and its proxies in Iraq have done most of the heavy-lifting.
"We definitely won't let the situation in Syria to go forward the way rebel countries want... We will take necessary actions in due time," deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri told Iran's Arabic-language Al-Aalam television.
Jazayeri was responding to a question on whether Iran planned to send more military "advisers" - a euphemism for both actual advisers and front line troops and special forces - to Syria were Saudi troops to be deployed there, risking a direct confrontation between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.
